Posted!

Join the Conversation

Comments

Welcome to our new and improved comments, which are for subscribers only.
This is a test to see whether we can improve the experience for you.
You do not need a Facebook profile to participate.

You will need to register before adding a comment.
Typed comments will be lost if you are not logged in.

Please be polite.
It's OK to disagree with someone's ideas, but personal attacks, insults, threats, hate speech, advocating violence and other violations can result in a ban.
If you see comments in violation of our community guidelines, please report them.

It’s no secret that problems that develop in personal relationships can prove costly, especially once attorneys become involved.

When the players in a troubled relationship are both public officials, it seems, things can even get expensive for uninvolved taxpayers.

We will not at this point rehash the details of the problems that played out — at times publicly — between then-Muncie City Court Judge Dianna Bennington and Jason Walker, at the time chief deputy of the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office.

Some of the allegations lodged against her by a state judicial commission focused on her “injudicious and prejudicial public conduct” stemming from her interactions with Walker, the father of her two children.

During the course of that turmoil, Bennington apparently filed a public records request with the sheriff’s office, seeking materials related to Walker — including a portion of his email correspondence.

The late Mike Scroggins, at the time Delaware County’s sheriff, referred the matter to an Indianapolis law firm that represented his department.

W/R recently filed a records request of our own, hoping to determine how much the legal advice stemming from the Bennington-Walker saga cost Delaware County taxpayers.

The figure — for work and research conducted by the attorney from November 2014 to January 2015 — came to $8,309.18, according to billing statements provided by the sheriff’s office.

Those records indicate the Indianapolis attorney’s efforts included reviewing Walker’s emails to determine whether they contained privileged material, and drafting responses to Bennington.

The $8,309.18 admittedly seems like small potatoes when compared to many government expenditures. It's also exactly $8,309.18 more than taxpayers would have provided to the cause had the individuals involved been someone other than government officials.

A tale of two Trump signs

With another election season past, we can once again say good riddance to campaign yard signs.

There are plenty of people out there who see some value to signs bearing a candidate's name, stuck in a yard or, worse, the right-of-way area along a road.

But it seems like campaign yard signs cause more trouble and upset every year than they would appear to be worth. We recently noted a man who threatened gunplay if he caught the person who stole his Donald Trump yard sign.

On Election Day, Trump signs played into two odd scenarios in Muncie.

At the polling place at Gillespie Tower downtown, a campaign volunteer watched as a car drove up, someone got out and pulled up a sign for Republican Congressional candidate Todd Young. The man threw the Young sign to the ground, replaced it with a Trump sign and drove away. Observers provided W/R with a picture of the aftermath.

Halfway across town, another Trump sign drama played out on Tuesday. Duke Campbell, a Democratic Party candidate for county commissioner, was campaigning outside the polling place at Grissom Elementary School when a man drove up, got out of the car and told Campbell he needed a Trump sign and took the one at the polling place.

Hours later, as someone arrived to pick up Republican signs, Campbell said the GOP sign worker commented that the Trump sign was missing.

Campbell told W/R he explained that some Trump supporter had already taken it. The man looked at Campbell as if he didn't believe him.

"That's what I would say, too," the man said, implying that Campbell had lied.

End of the line?

For the 17th time in the past 18 local Democratic primary elections, Kenneth Davenport was on the Delaware County ballot last Tuesday.

And for the 17th time, Davenport failed to win his party’s nomination.

That said, the persistent campaigner said he was appreciative of the 2,823 votes he did receive, in a contest with Annette Craycraft, now the Democratic nominee for Delaware County commissioner in District 2.

During his decades on the campaign trail — competing in every Democratic primary since 1994, except in last year’s city election — Davenport has drawn a total of 28,523 votes.

After last week’s votes were counted, the Democrat said his 2016 race might be his last — at least locally.

He’s strongly considering a move to Lafayette, where many of his relatives now live. And where, he’ll find, they also hold Democratic primary elections three years out of every four.